This kind of "indifference" to Ruby from Pythonists is understanble. The worst that can happen is that they will miss the language that they should be using for another 3 years. And no, they aren't interchangeable. Ruby is not perfect, and neither is Python. There is still room for improvements, so in 3 years a lot may change, maybe making the gap even bigger and more easily noticeable.
Yes, you could keep punching cards or writing asssembler. Or maybe, write C or Java.
Or...
You could use Ruby and build your programs and libraries in a special way, that makes them concise and much more maintenable. That way instead of creating one program per year, you could create one per week, and keep improving them as needed.
You are not free from creating your own libraries, though. You are even encouraged to. And it's much easier to create a library in Ruby than in other languages. The payoff is that *you* will have the library *soon*.
I could say that in other languages either you find a library to do what you want, or you are sold. With Ruby, you don't even think. You create the library right away.
Though we don't need to write all the libraries necessary for our programs, because I think that Ruby has advanced from being used by early adopters to being used by application developers. See this article by Eric Sink, for example:
http://software.ericsink.com/Act_Your_Age.html
Cheers!
Many of us, Rubyists, have been introduced to Ruby by the very first version of this book. And the first version is online and is still handy for consulting: http://www.ruby-doc.org/find/pickaxe
But this new version covers all the changes from Ruby 1.6 to Ruby 1.8; making this book a must have.
As far as I know, it's available as PDF and as paper, and I'm gonna have both.
Thanks Dave for helping the occident know Ruby and Matz for creating the must inspiring language for me.
Rexx may be cool, but it is way uglier than Ruby.
Ruby on the other hand, is way prettier than any other language.:-)
My point is that we use whatever language we happen to know and like. Having an IBM or Microsoft label to it does no good to me, if it's lacking compared to others.:-)
Sorry, but what crazy distro wants to drop users?:-)
Because in the end, that's what's going to happen. Guess what? There are other distros which support GNOME *just fine*. I'm very happy with Ubuntu. So far it's the best Linux system in *years* that I have got. I know it's not the ultimate distro for everybody, though. If you dare, take a look at it. It doesn't bite.
I use Mozilla based browsers since 99 and I don't remember seeing slashdot rendered like that. What a bad luck for you. And you keep pushing your luck, don't you?:-)
"Often, downright ugly, this "feature" ensures that every object is what you think it is. You delegate all the checking to the compiler so you program, when it is incorrect, fails early, in fact, fails before it runs. Failing early is the sign of great code."
Not when the type is checked at runtime. I dare to say that many of the popular libraries do have the chance of blowing up at runtime. Ever heard of the abuse of RTTI and bytecodes?:-)
"Exception handling is a marvelous feature once you realize that from every situation there may be more than one (or two,..) ways out. Using exceptions allows much cleaner separation of the "normal" logic and the "error" logic. Now, whether all the exceptions must be checked, or if C# model is better - is a different question."
Care to share with us your 10kloc of code that do the right think and handle the exceptions carefully and perfectly?
"Because IT IS an error when precesion is lost?"
You mean you can represent infinite numbers without losing precision?
"stacktrace allows to pinpoint your runtime problems"
Nice feature, indeed, shared by many programming languages.
"classpath can be messy but it is precise: only stuff from classpath will be loaded by your program, nothing less, nothing more."
Cool, you mean that stuff in jre/lib and alike directories isn't loaded by default?
Anyway, Java is good enough. Just like the web is good enough. etc.:-)
"A large part of what Java is about is failsafe enterprise-level applications. When you write to that level of safety, you need to identify the different causes of issues."
And you can guarantee that every Java program lives to the "failsafe" myth, right? No. But you can at least guarantee that your programs are failsafe, right? And of course, that all the other libraries that your program uses should be guaranteed to be failsafe by someone, who could be you, 'cause you trust everything Java, right?
The problem is, I don't have the perfect environment either.:-)
"They have never had to write an e-commerce system that ties together multiple enterprise datasources, call into SOAP/CORBA etc services on another box, etc"
Neither have many of the Java proponents. Many of the "enterprise systems" aren't very different of the "usual systems". Many of the wannabe Java enterprise programmers, could use other stuff that's much easier.
Java is funny. The level of reuse in Java is in the library, have you noticed? You grab a library off the net, learn how it works, and decide if it's good enough to use. And that's it. You never even think in writing such a library, 'cause you "don't want to reinvent the wheel", though your program might just be reinventing the wheel.
In Java you have at least 10 libraries for every task. Now go review them or discuss them with your peers. Problem is, your peers are engaged in writing their programs and are already evaluating other libraries that they wish *you* could help them with. And there it goes.
And then, all the Java developers start applying the populatiry filter to their available libraries. If it's not popular, they won't even take a look at it, as they are used to mainstream stuff.
You rock! Go for it.
Because of its licensing issues...
I never quite understood it. But right now, I have no doubt, or your program is GPL, or you should buy a f---ing license, no matter what OS you use.
I'm happy though that I'm investing some time on Firebird, which has much better licensing, and I expect to use PostgreSQL as well...
"If you need decent Unicode support, don't try Ruby, 'cos it's author arbitrarily dislikes Unicode and refuses to implement it. Hint: you probably either do need it or will do soon."
Matz has said that Ruby will have support for Unicode (utf8) and other formats beyond that. If you are on a hurry, code it yourself and share it with the community.
"If you want your programs to run at a decent speed, don't try Ruby, because for the amount of money you'd have to spend on hardware fast enough to run Ruby at anything above a toe-curling crawl, you could afford to hire so many extra programmers that they could write your code in hand-tuned ASM just as quickly as you can write it now in PHP."
One could use one of the several ways to load the interpreter as seldom as possible, and leave it at the memory answering the requests. If you distribute the requests among many machines, you could use the machines just like Google uses 10,000s of machines. Beat that.
"At this point I'm supposed to round out the post by recommending Lisp or Smalltalk over their bastard offspring, but I can't be bothered."
I doubt you use Lisp or Smalltalk as your main language, then. So why bother mentioning them.
Ruby's goal was never to re-implement Lisp nor Smalltalk, then I think that that statement can be misinterpreted.
Ruby stealed the best ideas that Matz found interesting to include in his language to make his life easier when programming. Later Ruby was released, and it became everyones' language, but, we use Ruby and love Ruby because of the unique features that Matz chose, many of which have been stolen by Python and Perl6, but you can't bend an existing language too much, or you lose backward compatibility. So, Python and Perl will never surpass Ruby, unless they break backward compatibility. It doesn't mean that a newer language won't do what Ruby does and much else, so we can switch language.;-)
Many Smalltalkers and Lispers admire Ruby, for whatever reason.
Cheers
"While a lot of people here are going to say, "wow, everyone is going to go to Mozilla/FireFox." I have serious doubts that we will see that. All we are going to see is a bunch of broken websites and people complaining. The solution is going to be to turn off the default security options and go back to browsing like they did before."
Who is the irresponsible that's going to tell them HOW to turn on the vulnerabilities? I mean, turn off the security options?
I was graced today when, still almost asleep, I signed in in my Yahoo-mail, and was greeted by the upgrade message.
Funnily (is that a word?:), I thought I had clicked in a wrong link, so I clicked the back button and re-did the sign in, and to my surprise, there it was again!
Still trying to like the new interface, though.
Competition is good, isn't it?:-)
If only there were two blondes trying to please me...
After 2 days using Firefox 0.9 RC on Windows, I wanted to say thanks for it by adding links to its page from my sites, but I had mixed feelings about that. My only worry is that some sites still work only with IE.
Seeing your 150 switch to Firefox gave me a warm feeling that some day, things may change.
To have an option is good. To actually have the better option is great. To make the switch is fantastic.
I've been happily using Mozilla flavored web browsers since 1999, and this is the first time that I wanted that everybody make the switch.
Once I installed the latest Firefox 0.9 RC, I kind of wanted the old theme back. But after using it for 5 or 6 hours, I was sold.
In the hope that someone from the Mozilla team will see this post: thank you so much for a wonderful web browser!
Slashdot Mirror
This kind of "indifference" to Ruby from Pythonists is understanble. The worst that can happen is that they will miss the language that they should be using for another 3 years. And no, they aren't interchangeable. Ruby is not perfect, and neither is Python. There is still room for improvements, so in 3 years a lot may change, maybe making the gap even bigger and more easily noticeable.
Yes, you could keep punching cards or writing asssembler. Or maybe, write C or Java. Or... You could use Ruby and build your programs and libraries in a special way, that makes them concise and much more maintenable. That way instead of creating one program per year, you could create one per week, and keep improving them as needed. You are not free from creating your own libraries, though. You are even encouraged to. And it's much easier to create a library in Ruby than in other languages. The payoff is that *you* will have the library *soon*. I could say that in other languages either you find a library to do what you want, or you are sold. With Ruby, you don't even think. You create the library right away. Though we don't need to write all the libraries necessary for our programs, because I think that Ruby has advanced from being used by early adopters to being used by application developers. See this article by Eric Sink, for example: http://software.ericsink.com/Act_Your_Age.html Cheers!
Many of us, Rubyists, have been introduced to Ruby by the very first version of this book. And the first version is online and is still handy for consulting:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/find/pickaxe
But this new version covers all the changes from Ruby 1.6 to Ruby 1.8; making this book a must have.
As far as I know, it's available as PDF and as paper, and I'm gonna have both.
Thanks Dave for helping the occident know Ruby and Matz for creating the must inspiring language for me.
Cheers!
From a brazilian.
Cheers.
Rexx may be cool, but it is way uglier than Ruby. Ruby on the other hand, is way prettier than any other language. :-)
My point is that we use whatever language we happen to know and like. Having an IBM or Microsoft label to it does no good to me, if it's lacking compared to others. :-)
Sorry, but what crazy distro wants to drop users? :-)
Because in the end, that's what's going to happen. Guess what? There are other distros which support GNOME *just fine*. I'm very happy with Ubuntu. So far it's the best Linux system in *years* that I have got. I know it's not the ultimate distro for everybody, though. If you dare, take a look at it. It doesn't bite.
Here we go again... Hold on... woooooowww. :)
I hope I'm safe enough by not using many Microsoft apps, but I'm not sure about that. Sucks.
I use Mozilla based browsers since 99 and I don't remember seeing slashdot rendered like that. What a bad luck for you. And you keep pushing your luck, don't you? :-)
I loved the KISS style of the new layout. But what do I know? I'm no designer. :-)
"Often, downright ugly, this "feature" ensures that every object is what you think it is. You delegate all the checking to the compiler so you program, when it is incorrect, fails early, in fact, fails before it runs. Failing early is the sign of great code."
:-)
..) ways out. Using exceptions allows much cleaner separation of the "normal" logic and the "error" logic. Now, whether all the exceptions must be checked, or if C# model is better - is a different question."
:-)
Not when the type is checked at runtime. I dare to say that many of the popular libraries do have the chance of blowing up at runtime. Ever heard of the abuse of RTTI and bytecodes?
"Exception handling is a marvelous feature once you realize that from every situation there may be more than one (or two,
Care to share with us your 10kloc of code that do the right think and handle the exceptions carefully and perfectly?
"Because IT IS an error when precesion is lost?"
You mean you can represent infinite numbers without losing precision?
"stacktrace allows to pinpoint your runtime problems"
Nice feature, indeed, shared by many programming languages.
"classpath can be messy but it is precise: only stuff from classpath will be loaded by your program, nothing less, nothing more."
Cool, you mean that stuff in jre/lib and alike directories isn't loaded by default?
Anyway, Java is good enough. Just like the web is good enough. etc.
"A large part of what Java is about is failsafe enterprise-level applications. When you write to that level of safety, you need to identify the different causes of issues."
:-)
And you can guarantee that every Java program lives to the "failsafe" myth, right?
No. But you can at least guarantee that your programs are failsafe, right?
And of course, that all the other libraries that your program uses should be guaranteed to be failsafe by someone, who could be you, 'cause you trust everything Java, right?
The problem is, I don't have the perfect environment either.
"They have never had to write an e-commerce system that ties together multiple enterprise datasources, call into SOAP/CORBA etc services on another box, etc" Neither have many of the Java proponents. Many of the "enterprise systems" aren't very different of the "usual systems". Many of the wannabe Java enterprise programmers, could use other stuff that's much easier. Java is funny. The level of reuse in Java is in the library, have you noticed? You grab a library off the net, learn how it works, and decide if it's good enough to use. And that's it. You never even think in writing such a library, 'cause you "don't want to reinvent the wheel", though your program might just be reinventing the wheel. In Java you have at least 10 libraries for every task. Now go review them or discuss them with your peers. Problem is, your peers are engaged in writing their programs and are already evaluating other libraries that they wish *you* could help them with. And there it goes. And then, all the Java developers start applying the populatiry filter to their available libraries. If it's not popular, they won't even take a look at it, as they are used to mainstream stuff. You rock! Go for it.
Because of its licensing issues... I never quite understood it. But right now, I have no doubt, or your program is GPL, or you should buy a f---ing license, no matter what OS you use. I'm happy though that I'm investing some time on Firebird, which has much better licensing, and I expect to use PostgreSQL as well...
But I don't quite remember the name, though.
You could waste your money other ways, though. Like posting on Slashdot.
I hope that it's worth to those that will download it, but most people, I guess, won't download it for several reasons. Damn!
Leave Ruby for you only, right? ;-)
"If you need decent Unicode support, don't try Ruby, 'cos it's author arbitrarily dislikes Unicode and refuses to implement it. Hint: you probably either do need it or will do soon."
Matz has said that Ruby will have support for Unicode (utf8) and other formats beyond that. If you are on a hurry, code it yourself and share it with the community.
"If you want your programs to run at a decent speed, don't try Ruby, because for the amount of money you'd have to spend on hardware fast enough to run Ruby at anything above a toe-curling crawl, you could afford to hire so many extra programmers that they could write your code in hand-tuned ASM just as quickly as you can write it now in PHP."
One could use one of the several ways to load the interpreter as seldom as possible, and leave it at the memory answering the requests. If you distribute the requests among many machines, you could use the machines just like Google uses 10,000s of machines. Beat that.
"At this point I'm supposed to round out the post by recommending Lisp or Smalltalk over their bastard offspring, but I can't be bothered."
I doubt you use Lisp or Smalltalk as your main language, then. So why bother mentioning them.
Ruby's goal was never to re-implement Lisp nor Smalltalk, then I think that that statement can be misinterpreted. Ruby stealed the best ideas that Matz found interesting to include in his language to make his life easier when programming. Later Ruby was released, and it became everyones' language, but, we use Ruby and love Ruby because of the unique features that Matz chose, many of which have been stolen by Python and Perl6, but you can't bend an existing language too much, or you lose backward compatibility. So, Python and Perl will never surpass Ruby, unless they break backward compatibility. It doesn't mean that a newer language won't do what Ruby does and much else, so we can switch language. ;-)
Many Smalltalkers and Lispers admire Ruby, for whatever reason.
Cheers
That's terrible.
Yeah, but are all the security options available separately?
The same browser that is used to access internal (intranet) web applications, is used to access the Internet. Now imagine the conflict.
"While a lot of people here are going to say, "wow, everyone is going to go to Mozilla/FireFox." I have serious doubts that we will see that. All we are going to see is a bunch of broken websites and people complaining. The solution is going to be to turn off the default security options and go back to browsing like they did before."
Who is the irresponsible that's going to tell them HOW to turn on the vulnerabilities? I mean, turn off the security options?
That's gonna need some balls.
I was graced today when, still almost asleep, I signed in in my Yahoo-mail, and was greeted by the upgrade message.
:), I thought I had clicked in a wrong link, so I clicked the back button and re-did the sign in, and to my surprise, there it was again!
:-)
Funnily (is that a word?
Still trying to like the new interface, though.
Competition is good, isn't it?
If only there were two blondes trying to please me...
After 2 days using Firefox 0.9 RC on Windows, I wanted to say thanks for it by adding links to its page from my sites, but I had mixed feelings about that. My only worry is that some sites still work only with IE.
Seeing your 150 switch to Firefox gave me a warm feeling that some day, things may change.
To have an option is good. To actually have the better option is great. To make the switch is fantastic.
I've been happily using Mozilla flavored web browsers since 1999, and this is the first time that I wanted that everybody make the switch.
Once I installed the latest Firefox 0.9 RC, I kind of wanted the old theme back. But after using it for 5 or 6 hours, I was sold.
In the hope that someone from the Mozilla team will see this post: thank you so much for a wonderful web browser!
Cheers.
Of course, I would love to.